Saturday, January 30, 2016

Landowner scares off wolves that had surrounded dog

Members of the Dirty Shirt wolf pack
came into conflict with dogs northeast of Chewelah, Wash., according to
the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A homeowner in northeastern Washington state used a rifle to scare
off five wolves that had surrounded his dog, the state Department of
Fish and Wildlife reported.

Members of the Dirty Shirt wolf pack
confronted a female Great Pyrenees at a home northeast of Chewlah,
Wash., in Stevens County on Jan. 25.

The resident, who was not
identified by the department, reported to the Stevens County Sheriff’s
Office that at least five wolves surrounded his female Great Pyrenees in
a field outside his home on Burnt Valley Road shortly after dark,
according to wolf policy lead Donny Martorello.

The resident and
his wife became alarmed when the wolves approached the dog, according to
the update. The wolves surrounded the Great Pyrenees and “there was
posturing and jumping,” Martorello stated.

The owner’s other dog, a German Shepherd-mix, was nearby and also approached the group, according to the update.

The
man got his rifle and fired two or three shots over the heads of the
wolves and dogs. At that point, the wolves moved away from the house and
the dogs went inside.

Martorello said a drop of blood was found at the site, but the dogs were not injured. “We
take it as a very serious incident,” Martorello told the Capital Press.
“It’s one where wolves were very clearly on their private property. It
could have turned out much worse if the owners of the dogs weren’t on
site and able to haze that wolf away.”

The incident occurred in
the portion of the state where wolves are not listed as endangered under
the federal Endangered Species Act. Given the imminent threat to the
dogs, the dog owners had the right to shoot one of the wolves but did
not, Martorello said.

The department confirmed four attacks
between July 5 and 10 in which wolves from the Dirty Shirt pack killed
livestock. The use of nonlethal tactics seemed to stop additional
attacks on livestock, Martorello said.

The situation with the
dogs “may be a bit different,” he said. Wolves and dogs view one another
as “the same critter” and “territorial disputes” occur. “Typically,
when dogs and wolves come together in that kind of encounter, dogs are
usually not able to defend themselves,” he said. “Wolves can easily
injure or kill dogs. In this case, the owners did everything right and
were able to keep that from occurring.”

Martorello advises rural
residents to be aware that wolves are keying in on sheep and cattle,
which are present in smaller numbers during the winter. “Pay
attention to tracks in the snow, any of those kinds of signs that tell
you the wolves might be in that immediate vicinity,” he said. “If you
have an encounter, please call us immediately.”

Martorello said
the department will continue to monitor the pack’s movements closely to
determine if they are near pets or livestock. If so, the department will
tell landowners. “(We’ll) be as proactive as we can to avoid any further interactions,” he said.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone